The largest meteor to hit the planet in a century hurtled towards a lake in Chelyabinsk in central Russia on February 15th, which caused structural damage to buildings and blew glass from windows, injuring 1,200 people. .

The largest impact previously recorded took place in 1908, when the Tungusta asteroid flattened more than 800 square miles of forest in Siberia

The Perseid Meteor Shower « whizzbang 1698 The year’s most spectacular meteor shower The Perseid meteor shower happens this weekend, Over the course of the next four days, Earth will plough ... rich1698.wordpress.com/2012/08/10/the-perseid-meteor-shower - Cached

Unearthly blue: Scientists reveal color of planet 63 light years away http://rt.com/news/deep-blue-planet-found-011/ For the first time, astronomers have been able to determine the color of a planet outside the solar system, and it turns out that this planet is blue. It circles a star 63 light years away from Earth, and it rains melting glass there. 15

KOMMENTARER: The HIGH diversity of humans in Africa suggests that HUMANS originated in Africa. The LOW diversity of the GENETIC CODE here on Earth suggests that this code (and thus the life) originated elsewhere.

One asteroid coming should rise the risk of other asteroids coming in near time. I think asteroids come in swarms or spread out along an elliptic orbit that earth might pass through - similar to what is the case with meteors. It might be only a matter of sizes.

MPL3D Solar System (shareware) http://lib.giveawayoftheday.com/MPL3D_Solar_System_132283/ This is an interactive 3D space simulation of the close universe in real time. You can explore more than 10,000 real extrasolar objects, including: dynamic representation of stars (pulse, eruptive, rotatory, binary and cataclysmic), full Solar System (plus more than 120 known extrasolar worlds) and more.

Solar System Simulator (shareware) http://lib.giveawayoftheday.com/Solar_System_Simulator_22904/ SimSolar is a fun and educational solar system simulator. The relative positions of the sun, moon and planets are shown for any date selected. With SimSolar you’ll be able to tilt and rotate the entire system to view from any desired vantage point. Set the system in motion and watch the planets move around their orbits at any speed you select. You can search for planetary alignments or check the phase of the moon on any selected date. You could even type in your birthday and see the positions of the planets on that date. The Today button automatically snaps the planets back into proper position for the current date. The Hide Controls button allows you to clear away all of the controls except the top row, providing an unobstructed view of the solar system. SimSolar can present the sun, the planets and their respective orbits to different scales. You can zoom in and out according to your needs and desires, covering all ranges from viewing the whole solar system to the inner planets in more detail. The adjustable Minimum Planet Diameter feature keeps the planets from disappearing completely when you are zoomed out too far. Small labels can be turned on, which follow the planets through their motions, making it easy to keep track. Orbit Circles can be turned on and off with a click of the mouse. You can use SimSolar's Earth Centered option to view the apparent motions of the sun and planets as seen from the Earth. Holding the Earth at the center of the screen causes the planets to move in wild spirograph-type patterns as they circle the sun. If you turn on the Spirograph option you’ll be watching as colored streamers follow each planet. There is a trial version of this piece of software, available for 30 days. It’s kind of limited in comparison with the registered version. Let’s see the following list to know what the extra features are on the registered version of SimSolar: • Planet Images from NASA's online image archive. • Photo-realistic Moon Phase display. • Full-featured Galilean Moon Simulator. • Alignment Finder - automatically detects and displays alignments of planets. • Planet Info - detailed information on each planet, including large photos. If you are interested in buying this program you can do it online with your credit card. There are two license types to consider: - Single User License: allows one copy of the software to be used on any machine by one individual at a time. A registration code is provided, which will activate the extended features and replace the UNREGISTERED notice with your user name on the start-up screen as the application is loaded. - Limited Site License: allows up to 30 individuals to use the software simultaneously, either on individual machines, or by accessing the software over a Local Area Network. Users accessing the software over a network must be physically located at the licensed site. A registration code is provided, along with a receipt for your files, showing that all seats have been properly registered. Multiple installations are not typically required for network operation (the executable can be run remotely with no files on the local machine) « less Review licensed from Publisher description SimSolar - Solar System Simulator for Windows. Planet labels and orbits can be activated for easier understanding. Includes simple display and controls, speed control, tilt and rotation options for easy viewing, earth centered mode and spirograph option for showing movement patterns such as retrograde motion, options for scaled planet and orbit sizes, and over 150 years of range. For convenience, a color selector, print controls, jump to today button, hide controls button, and restore defaults button are included. Registered version includes photo-realistic moon phase display, planet images, information pages for the nine planets and the sun and moon, an alignment finder, and a Galilean Moons of Jupiter simulator. For screen shots, further explanation, and order information visit www.pwr-tools.com/simsolar.

Planets of the Solar System (freeware) http://lib.giveawayoftheday.com/Planets_Of_The_Solar_System_656404/ is a comprehensive reference with illustrations. It allows you to explore the Solar system on your PDA. The software's features include resident mode to lookup words from another applications, fast browsing, expansion cards support, search within the offered definitions, etc.

G Eriksson 15.12.2013 21:08 It came to my thought when I read this article: Th ere has to be EXACTLY ONE of these three: (1) REAL destiny (2) REAL free will (3) REAL randomness

And it is hard to believe HOW any one of the three can actually be achieved! C ompare with the difficulty to believe in either an unlimited universe or a limited universe. ***** Perhaps the central rule in the universe is that there has to be a REASON for everything that does NOT happen - not to happen!

European space probe to attempt comet landing http://rt.com/news/european-space-probe-comet-083/ The European Space Agency (ESA) plans to land an unmanned spacecraft on a comet next year in a very tricky maneuver. The Rosetta probe, which has been traveling through space since its launch in 2004, will attempt to drop a lander onto the surface of an icy comet - known as 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko - on November 11, 2014. Scientists will attempt to fly the probe alongside the comet and send down the barrel-sized lander, which is equipped with drills, to analyze samples from the comet’s surface.

However, the threat posed by the 2013 TV135 is minor. Updated estimates show that it has a one in 14,000 chance of colliding with our planet, which is five times as probable as the initial estimate of 1 in 63,000, but still negligible. Astronomers say the asteroid’s orbit will be about 1.7 million kilometers away from the Earth’s orbit on August 26, 2032.

Scientists will be able to better evaluate the impact risk of 2013 TV135, and even determine its possible impact site on Earth by 2028, Timur Kryachko from the Crimean Astrophysical Observatory told the RIA Novosti news agency.

According to NASA’s Near Earth Object Program, there is currently just one asteroid that has the same rating. It’s called 2007 VK184. At 130 meters wide, it has 1 in 1,820 chance of impacting Earth on June 3, 2048.

amjad ali 12.11.2013 08:15 you really think can scare me? why you are spending bllns of $ flying in the space and failed to even understand barmuda triangle you are not done on earth did any asteroid hit hiroshima nagasaki vietnam afghanistan iraq lybia palestine was india maleysia philipines srilanka thailand devastated by a asteroid and japan in 2011. no they were not, humen killing eachother everyday. if? if there's any asteroid going to hit us in the future i am afraid few people would be left for the asteroid to kill the way we are killing eachother this is the real concern. lets get back to earth and work for a better future of our kids

G Eriksson 15.12.2013 21:40 Does asteroids come in swarms? If so ... then there might arrive other potentially hazardous smaller objects nearby in time and space ...

Ralph Ostrander 18.10.2013 18:33 After we are hit then they will want to concentrate on earth defence.

Just one in 63,000.... chances of winning the lottery aint that good. This has a better chance of hitting earth than someone getting struck by lightning. Granted that sounds comforting, but if u think of the things that have a better chance of happening, not so much

Cool, If I'm still alive by then, I hope I get a front row seat... It should be a heck of a show!

Sun ‘flips upside down’ while reversing magnetic poles http://rt.com/news/sun-upside-down-flip-990/ The sun has undergone a “complete field reversal,” with its north and south poles changing places as it marks the midpoint of Solar Cycle 24. “A reversal of the sun's magnetic field is, literally, a big event,” NASA’s Dr. Tony Phillips said in a statement issued on the space agency’s website. “The sun's polar magnetic fields weaken, go to zero and then emerge again with the opposite polarity. This is a regular part of the solar cycle,” Stanford solar physicist Phil Scherrer explained. While it may seem like the event could have catastrophic repercussions for the galaxy, its effects are actually more subtle, mostly interfering with space exploration. “Cosmic rays are a danger to astronauts and space probes, and some researchers say they might affect the cloudiness and climate of Earth,” said Phillips. Both the aurora borealis and its southern counterpart - the australis - are set to become broader, more frequent, and more visible now that the event has reached its final stage. The process has been slow and steady, with solar physicist Todd Hoeksama telling Metro: “It’s kind of like a tide coming in or going out. Each little wave brings a little more water in, and eventually you get to the full reversal.” Scherrer explained earlier in December that “the sun's north pole has already changed sign, while the South Pole is racing to catch up.” The impact of the process has been extremely far-reaching. “The domain of the sun's magnetic influence (also known as the 'heliosphere') extends billions of kilometers beyond Pluto. Changes to the field's polarity ripple all the way out to the Voyager probes, on the doorstep of interstellar space,” Phillips explained. NASA has released a visualization of how the switch occurs. Beginning in 1997 and ending in 2013, it shows the green (positive) polarity switching with the purple (negative) polarity. Solar Cycle 24 has been viewed as quite unpredictable. First, it came late by about a year, with extremely low activity recorded throughout 2009. This prompted astronomers to shift a predicted 2012 peak to 2013. Scientists say the cycle is already among the weakest reported and if the trend continues, the Earth might see another Little Ice Age.

Can magnetic field reversal of the Sun cause the same to happen to the Earth? How often happen the magnetic field reversals of the Sun?

Hah!!!!...so the end of the article says ice age!!,,,I'm glad I know my Science and history!...the Global warming lie!

Instead, in his paper, Information Preservation and Weather Forecasting for Black Holes, Hawking proposes that black holes can exist without 'event horizons', the invisible cover believed to surround every black hole. During a previous lecture, 'Into the Black Hole', Hawkins described an event horizon as the boundary of a black hole, "where gravity is just strong enough to drag light back, and prevent it escaping". “Falling through the event horizon, is a bit like going over Niagara Falls in a canoe", he said. "If you are above the falls, you can get away if you paddle fast enough, but once you are over the edge, you are lost. There's no way back. "As you get nearer the falls, the current gets faster. This means it pulls harder on the front of the canoe, than the back. There's a danger that the canoe will be pulled apart. It is the same with black holes.” But now, Hawking is proposing 'apparent horizons' could exist instead, which would only hold light and information temporarily before releasing them back into space in 'garbled form', Nature has reported. The internationally-renowned theoretical physicist suggests that quantum mechanics and general relativity remain intact, but black holes do not have an event horizon to catch fire. Stephen Hawking, internationally-renowned theoretical physicist, has apparently been inspired by Sue Barker and Louie Spence to appear in the latest episode of the world’s most annoying adverts Stephen Hawking, internationally-renowned theoretical physicist, proposes the absence of event horizons His work attempts to address the 'black-hole firewall paradox' first discovered by theoretical physicist Joseph Polchinski and his colleagues almost two years ago, when Polchinski and his team began investigating what would happen to an astronaut who fell into a black hole. They hypothesised that instead of being gradually ripped apart by gravitational forces, the event horizon would be transformed into a 'highly energetic region', and anyone who fell in would hit a wall of fire and burn to death in an instant - violating Albert Einstein's theory of relativity. In his paper, Hawking writes: "The absence of event horizons means that there are no black holes - in the sense of regimes from which light can't escape to infinity." He told Nature journal: “There is no escape from a black hole in classical theory, but quantum theory, however, “enables energy and information to escape from a black hole.” Don Page, a physicist and expert on black holes at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada told Nature that "the picture Hawking gives sounds pretty reasonable". “You could say that it is radical to propose there’s no event horizon", he said. "But these are highly quantum conditions, and there’s ambiguity about what space-time even is, let alone whether there is a definite region that can be marked as an event horizon.”

NASA finds ‘monster’ black hole in tiny galaxy http://rt.com/news/188864-nasa-monster-black-hole/ COMMENT: Maybe the galaxy black hole is just the remnants of most of the former stars of it. - What remains of old galaxies might be just a black hole when it has swallowed itself ...

He might mean that instead of the outer parts expanding the inner parts may be contracting. Maybe the entire universe is a black hole and thats why we can't travel backwards in time beause we can't win over the contraction pace of the black hole - which shows itself as an expansion pace of the outer parts of our universe.

‘F**k Earth!’ Elon Musk wants to send million people to Mars to ensure humanity’s survival rt.com/usa/192324-musk-mars-colony-details/

The most interesting place to land on would be in the neck between the two spheres. Besides: Landing on a more peripheral region might throw the lander out into space again due to the comet's rotation.

= Researchers have analyzed a meteorite that fell in the Moroccan desert three years ago, finding “unique” traces carbon of “a very probable biological origin” and thus rebooting the theory about life on Mars.

It might have come from Earth. Maybe it was thown from Earth into space as a result of a huge meteor falling to the ground on Earth. Gravity made it return to Earth. It was heated very much when fell in the athmosphere.

There might be some kind of resonance mechanism that result in repetitions of situations. If so, then many probable hits have already occured. And as a further consequece: It could be VERY dangerout for arteficially change the orbit of a nereby asteroide even the slightest. It might then hit Earth after just a few more revolutions.

Home / News / 2014 as we saw it: Top 10 SCIENCE & NATURE videos of the year Published time: January 04, 2015 02:23 Get short URL 231201 Tags Arms, Children, Conflict, EU, Europe, France, Middle East, Planes, Politics, Protest, Russia, Scandal, SciTech, Science, Space, Transport, USA, Ukraine, Vehicles From lightning bolts to volcano vaults, rocket implosions to missile explosions - Mother Nature had it all during 2014, all caught through camera lenses across the globe. Ukrainian driver narrowly misses missile A driver near the Ukrainian city of Donetsk was just a couple of seconds from certain death after a missile exploded just meters in front of his car. He emerged unscathed and posted the video on the main Russian social network Vkontakte (In Contact), entitling it “My second birthday.” He may need a new car though as the front was smashed by debris from the road after the missile struck. Antares rocket goes up in flames An Antares rocket exploded seconds after launch on the Virginia coast on October 28. The US spacecraft was heading to the International Space Station (ISS) on a supply mission. No one was killed during the unmanned launch, but NASA warned that the explosion may have resulted in debris scattering across surrounding areas, which may wash up on shore. Stunning video footage was released a month later, giving some spectacular close-up shots of the explosion. Different angles captured the moment the $200 million rocket went up in flames. Unexplained bright lights stun scientists It was a cold dark evening on a road in the Ural Mountains region of Russia. Nothing unusual there - until a brilliant collage of orange, yellow and red momentarily lit up the dark landscape. But what caused it? This question still puzzles Russian scientists after the moment was caught on a dashcam. A new meteorite or military exercise were some of the top guesses from the bewildered public. However, both were dismissed by officials. So could it have been a UFO? The truth is out there.

Stjärntid: To an accuracy within 0.1 second per century, Greenwich (Mean) Sidereal Time (in hours and decimal parts of an hour) can be calculated as GMST = 18.697 374 558 + 24.065 709 824 419 08 * D , where D is the interval, in UT1 days including any fraction of a day, since 2000 January 1, at 12h UT (interval counted positive if forwards to a later time than the 2000 reference instant), and the result is freed from any integer multiples of 24 hours to reduce it to a value in the range 0–24.[4] In other words, Greenwich Mean Sidereal Time exceeds mean solar time at Greenwich by a difference equal to the longitude of the fictitious mean Sun used for defining mean solar time (with longitude converted to time as usual at the rate of 1 hour for 15 degrees), plus or minus an offset of 12 hours (because mean solar time is reckoned from 0h midnight, instead of the pre-1925 astronomical tradition where 0h meant noon).

GeoMag (freeware) http://lib.giveawayoftheday.com/GeoMag_190375/ The Geographic Magnetic Calculator is a tool to help you determine UTM Coordinates and the Magnetic Declination that correspond to a longitude/latitude location. GeoMag is freeware and can be downloaded for your personal use and can only be distributed as a stand alone application. Now updated for the lastest geomagnetic epoch parameters, 2010 through 2015. GeoMag has date entry boxes with up/down arrows that allow the user to change the location and time for which the Earth's magnetic declination is calculated. When the longitude or latitude change, GeoMag automatically translates the location to UTM easting, northing, zone number and convergence. In reverse, when changes occur in the UTM easting, northing or zone, GeoMag automatically translates the longitude and latitude. In both case, the Earth's magnetic declination is updated.

= https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pAjvQ5uu7I Schemalagt för 14 sep. 2016 Launched in December 2013, Gaia is destined to create the most accurate map yet of the Milky Way. By making accurate measurements of the positions and motions of stars in the Milky Way, it will answer questions about the origin and evolution of our home galaxy. The first intermediate data release, containing among other things three-dimensional positions and two-dimensional motions of a subset of two million stars, demonstrates that Gaia’s measurements are as precise as planned, paving the way to create the full map of one billion stars to be released towards the end of 2017.

Giant asteroid ‘Florence’ whizzes past Earth revealing two moons (IMAGES, VIDEOS) https://www.rt.com/news/401841-asteroid-earth-flyby-moons/ Published time: 2 Sep, 2017 16:52 Edited time: 3 Sep, 2017 10:09 The largest asteroid to come so close to Earth in over a century whizzed by the planet Friday without a hitch - and revealed two tiny moons in the process. The highly anticipated asteroid ‘3122 Florence,’ measuring a whopping 2.8 miles (4.5 kilometers) in width, came within 4.4 million miles (7 million km) of Earth. The gap is the equivalent of 18 times the distance from our planet to the moon. “Florence is the largest asteroid to pass by our planet this close since the NASA program to detect and track near-Earth asteroids began,” Paul Chodas, of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said of the fly-by. READ MORE: Asteroid size of 40 football fields to scoot by Earth in September Radar images of the giant rock obtained from NASA’s Goldstone Solar System center in California have provided the first-up close views of Florence, named after 19th-century English nursing pioneer Florence Nightingale. The Center for Near Earth Object Studies (CNEOS) describes the asteroid as being fairly round with a ridge along its equator, a large crater and two large flat regions. Optical measurements confirmed that the space rock rotates once every two-and-a-half hours. The radar images also revealed that the asteroid has two small moons orbiting it. Though their sizes are not yet known, the moons are estimated to measure between 100-300 meters (300-1,000 feet) across. The time it takes each moon to orbit Florence is also not clear, but appears to be roughly 8 hours for the inner moon and up to 27 hours for the outer satellite, according to the CNEOS. Having reached its closest approach to Earth early on September 1, Florence is now slowly receding from our planet. Additional radar observations will be carried out at Goldstone center and at the National Science Foundation’s Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico in the coming week, which are expected to provide more surface detail about Florence, and precise estimates of the orbital periods of the two moons. Such measurements will, in turn, help scientists estimate the total mass and density of the asteroid.

... The prehistoric origins of life on Earth may have begun in space, a new study published in the Journal of Chemical Physics suggests. Researchers at the University of Sherbrooke in Canada created a simulated space environment in which thin sheets of ice containing methane and oxygen were irradiated by electron beams, in a similar manner to what happens to objects in space. The chemical reaction caused a number of small organic chemicals to form on the icy films in a space-like environment. The new molecules included ethanol, acetic acid, acetylene, formaldehyde and ethane, some of which are key molecules or building blocks needed for early organisms. ... The research opens the possibility that our origins are extraterrestrial. The first life on Earth began around 4 billion years ago, but this finding suggests the building blocks needed for this to happen may have come from space, strengthening the theory that life may have begun outside our planet. The study was carried out under vacuum conditions, which mimics outer space conditions, according to the journal Astrobiology. The ice films were used as various types of ice form around dust grains in molecular clouds in space, and similar icy environments exist on asteroids, comets and moons.

... A specific interstellar aromatic molecule: Aromatic molecules such as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are known to exist in the interstellar medium owing to their characteristic infrared emission features. However, the infrared emission only indicates the general class of molecule, and identifying which specific molecular species are present is difficult. McGuire et al. used radio astronomy to detect rotational transitions of benzonitrile emitted from a well-known nearby cloud of interstellar gas (see the Perspective by Joblin and Cernicharo). This molecule may be a precursor to more complex PAHs. The identification of benzonitrile sheds light on the composition of aromatic material within the interstellar medium—material that will eventually be incorporated into new stars and planets. : Science, this issue p. 202; see also p. 156

Abstract: Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and polycyclic aromatic nitrogen heterocycles are thought to be widespread throughout the universe, because these classes of molecules are probably responsible for the unidentified infrared bands, a set of emission features seen in numerous Galactic and extragalactic sources. Despite their expected ubiquity, astronomical identification of specific aromatic molecules has proven elusive. We present the discovery of benzonitrile (c-C6H5CN), one of the simplest nitrogen-bearing aromatic molecules, in the interstellar medium. We observed hyperfine-resolved transitions of benzonitrile in emission from the molecular cloud TMC-1. Simple aromatic molecules such as benzonitrile may be precursors for polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon formation, providing a chemical link to the carriers of the unidentified infrared bands.

... Russian tech billionaire-turned-ET explorer Yuri Milner says he plans to beat NASA to a mission to the Saturn moon Enceladus in search of alien lifeforms.

... He said the chemical makeup of the water vapor, ejected out of geysers on the surface, could provide “a smoking gun for life below the surface.” He tempered expectations, though, by saying he expects to find “not intelligent life, maybe microbial life, or something more serious.”

... Speaking at a Seattle conference, ‘A New Space Age', Milner said his science team believes there are three potential locations for extra-terrestrial lifeforms in our solar system: under the surface of Mars, Jupiter’s moon Europa, and “the most promising candidate,” Enceladus.

Maybe it consists of magnetic material (iron ores?) and sticks together for that reason. Gaseous sulphur is paramagnetic. Sulphur can have have diffent colors between yellow and red. The hotter the more red and sticky.

Maybe it consists of magnetic material (iron ores?) and sticks together for that reason. Gaseous sulphur is paramagnetic. Sulphur can have different colors between yellow and red. The hotter the more red, until a gas.

... While authorities and operators of a New Mexico Solar Observatory remain tight-lipped why the facility was shut down abruptly 11 days ago, enthusiasts have crossed police lines to film the area that turned into a Ghost town. ... One man showed on the footage he later released on YouTube how he simply drove up to the facility and walked around the deserted complex, which he calls a “Ghost town”. “It is dead quiet,” he said, adding that he noticed some “weird smell”. He then spots a DVD of the famous X-files saga right in a trash bin. He noted that the building looks like it was abandoned in a hurry.